A walkabout in Newell Open Space
Nature preserve celebrates 25 years as a city-owned property, now open to hikers
On Sunday, John Houser, a part-time recreation specialist with the city of American Canyon, led six hikers, including this reporter, on a 5-plus mile walkabout around Newell Open Space Preserve in the hills east of the city. The free hike took place to mark Newell’s 25th anniversary as a city-owned property.
For more than three hours, the group followed a loop trail, occasionally stopping for mountain bikers or to look at coast live oaks, laurels, grasslands, coyote mints, artichoke thistles, willows and the final resting place of an unnamed bobcat.
Newell, a 640-plus-acre property, is also home to cattle that graze on leased land, gopher and garter snakes, red-tailed hawks that spread their wings in the sun and other raptors.
John Jacques, 61, has lived in American Canyon since 2016. An avid hiker, Houser has visited Newell plenty of times. He enjoys the solitude along hiking trails.
“You’re here for nature, and you’re just here for what God wants to show you,” he said during Sunday’s hike. “You already know what’s going on down there,” he said on a stretch of the loop trail overlooking the city of American Canyon.
Houser’s other projects include helping volunteers remove purple star thistles and blackberry bushes and leading other hikes through Newell. Houser, a Napa resident, said Newell is among his favorite hikes in Napa County.
Newell offers sweeping views and “good, walkable trails,” he noted.
The late Jack and Bernice Newell donated the land to the city as open space in December 1999. The land can never be developed. While the city owns the deed to the property, the Napa County Land Trust has a conservation easement on the land. The city manages the property with the Land Trust.
Newell is adjacent to Lynch Canyon Open Space, a 1,000-acre property with miles of trails in Solano County.
Various families have worked the land that is now a nature preserve. In 1864, Mary and Richard James Falls settled in the area and grew wheat. Their holdings totaled about 170 acres, according to city records. In 1900, the Falls sold the land to Charles Cantoni who operated a dairy ranch for years.
Residents used to stop by the Cantoni ranch to buy flowers, butter and eggs, according to the 2025 Newell Open Space Management Plan. Between 1913 and 1964, the Scally family and later Ted and Ruth Brown owned parts of the preserve.
The Newells purchased the ranch in 1980 and sold it five years later to a company that sought to build a solid waste landfill on the ranch. When these plans fell through, the Newells purchased the property back at auction in 1992.
It was dedicated as open space in 2000 but for years, access to the preserve was limited due to the lack of a public trail to the site. Public access became easier in 2015 after the city obtained an easement.
The city did not build trails within the property, said Alexandra Ikeda, a city representative. The trails are old cattle roads used by the Newell family, Ikeda said.
PG&E owns a utility easement on the property to maintain its electrical transmission lines that cross Newell.
Newell is now open from sunrise to sunset, seven days a week, on most days. The preserve may be closed for public maintenance, inclement weather or other reasons.
Access to Newell Open Space Preserve is at 7000 Newell Drive.
